We often talk about how the history of the Old Fashioned means it is the original cocktail, but mixed drinks weren’t invented the first time someone through together spirit, bitters, sugar and water. The Sling was around before that, and before the Sling was the Flip.

The Flip has a history that goes back to the colonial days of America and indeed, was likely an English concoction. Originally it was ale, rum, sugar and a whole egg, and was served warm — a mix as much designed to give one sustenance as it was to give comfort in the cold.

Since those early days in the late 1600’s, however, the Flip became a little more refined. Take your spirit, add sugar, and one whole egg, and shake it all about, you’ll find a use for your microplane with some grated nutmeg being the defining garnish.

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Here we’ve used an Irish whiskey for the base, but it could just as easily be rum, port, or sherry one uses — just as long as there is some weight to the flavour of the base spirit to carry through the drink.

If you’re concerned about the use of one whole, uncooked egg in the drink, that’s fair enough. It’s very rare, but not unheard of, to get salmonella poising from using uncooked egg whites and yolks. It’s estimated (in the U.S.) that just 1 in 20,000 eggs harbour Salmonella enteritidis, the strain of salmonella found in eggs. Without being a statistician, it’s reasonable to say that you have a very, very low risk of catching a contaminated egg in your drink. Alcohol, sadly, will not kill off the bacteria — and nor will the acidity of citrus while we’re at it — so it’s important to use eggs that are as fresh as possible, and to store them in the fridge (the warmer the temperature, the quicker salmonella will multiply if it’s present.